


Dude, Where's My Kid?

by lockmyheart



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternative Meeting, Babies, Kidfic, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1974117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockmyheart/pseuds/lockmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU] Ian and Mickey meet when Ian accidentally takes the wrong stroller and ends up with the wrong kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dude, Where's My Kid?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for tumblr user simnmonroe, who posted this: "omg now i need someone to write an AU where ian accidentally kidnaps mickey’s kid (or the other way around) and that’s how they meet". I let myself inspire, so I hope you like it :) I literally just whipped this together really quick, so it might not be the best. 
> 
> I figured Mickey wouldn't have Yevgeny if Ian and Mickey never met as teenagers, so I gave him another kid.

Ian really should have noticed before he left the store, but he was in such a rush to get home and finally get away from the sweltering heat and the strollers looked exactly the same. No, really, it was the same fucking stroller, it wasn’t his fault. So he didn’t notice until he stopped outside the house and reached into the stroller. “Huh, I could have sworn your blankets were green, Derek,” Ian cooed, grasping the baby beneath his armpits and slowly hoisting him up. “Oh, well, Uncle Ian’s memory isn’t always – what the fuck!” He held the baby at an arm’s length, staring at it with wide eyes. Either Ian had completely lost his mind, or this baby was wearing a light yellow sundress and a white bonnet instead of the blue overall he very clearly remembered having put on Derek this morning. “You’re not Derek,” he said, suddenly cold all over despite the sun beaming down at him. The baby flailed her arms and legs, grinning widely.

Oh, shit. Fuck. Fucking _shit._

Ian had kidnapped someone else’s child.

And lost Fiona’s.

He was dead.

 

* * *

 

Mickey didn’t notice until he got home either because the color of blankets and shit wasn’t really something he paid attention to.

“Fucking hell, it’s hot,” he muttered to himself and maneuvered the stroller in through the narrow door to the apartment he shared with his sister. “You hot, Charlie?” He pushed the canopy back and remained staring blankly into the stroller. The baby had kicked off the blankets and was lying there grinning at him, blinking its wide brown eyes. Fucking brown. “Mandy!” Mickey called at once, his heart rate picking up drastically. “Mandy, get the fuck out here!”

Mandy came running out of the bathroom, a towel around her head. “Jesus, what?”

Mickey pointed down into the stroller. “There’s some other kid in Charlie’s stroller!”

Mandy raised an eyebrow at him and came over to look for herself. “Well, fuck me,” she said. “So where the fuck’s Charlotte?”

Mickey ran a hand through his hair. Jesus christ, he couldn’t breathe. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Fuck.”

Mandy put a hand on his shoulder, still staring down at the baby boy that seemed to magically have taken Charlie’s place. “Don’t panic, we’ll find her. Someone probably just took the wrong stroller, right? If they wanted to kidnap a kid they wouldn’t just trade her with another one, would they?”

“Maybe they would, maybe it’s something wrong with this one and they wanted a healthy baby! Or a cuter one! This one’s got a funny nose and the hair’s all curly.”

Mickey was slowly getting hysterical. He was usually pretty level-headed but someone had _taken his kid,_ he couldn’t _not_ panic. He might never have wanted a kid, and maybe he used to think of her as the worst mistake of his life, but he was attached to the little bundle of fucking sunshine, it made him feel sick to think of her with some psycho babynapper.

“He doesn’t have a funny nose, it’s just a nose,” Mandy said and Mickey glared at her for being so calm when her fucking niece was missing. “Okay, let’s just get this kid out of this stroller, he’s probably boiling,” Mandy said and reached for the boy. He grabbed her hair and yanked, drool dripping down his chin. “Hold him while I look for information.”

Mickey shook his head. “No, I don’t wanna hold that thing.”

“It’s a baby,” Mandy snapped. “It’s not his fault he’s here. Take him.” She shoved him into his arms and Mickey couldn’t very well drop him to the floor, so he begrudgingly held on to him, glaring at him with his jaw set tight.

“Honestly.” Mandy opened the bag that hung from the handlebar and started digging through the contents. “You didn’t notice this bag is fucking green?”

“What, and what color’s Charlie’s?”

“Oh, my god,” Mandy mumbled and Mickey could practically hear her eye-roll. “ _Men_. It’s yellow, dumbfuck.”

“Green, yellow, they’re practically the same,” Mickey protested, glaring at the kid again when he decided to try to shove his finger up Mickey’s nostril. “Hey, stop that.”

The baby laughed at him. Fine, maybe he was sort of cute, but Mickey didn’t have to like him.   

“Alright, found a wallet,” Mandy said at last. “I doubt she’s been kidnapped, they wouldn’t leave evidence like this.”

“Whatever, just find the fucker who took her.”

Mandy flipped through the wallet and finally came up with an I.D. “Ian Gallagher,” she read. “Age twenty-one. Probably just as blind and stupid as you. And probably just as freaked out. You have any identification or anything in Charlotte’s stroller?”

Mickey tried to remember if he did. “I keep my wallet in my pocket,” he said, absentmindedly rocking the boy on his hip.  

“You need to keep _something_ in the stroller,” Mandy scolded him. “If only a piece of paper that says where to return it if found.”

Mickey didn’t have to listen to this. “We gonna call the stupid guy or what?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just let me get the phone book and we’ll find him.”

Mickey didn’t even know they owned a phonebook, let alone that those things even existed anymore, but whatever.

 

* * *

 

Ian had paced around the house for twenty minutes, holding a stranger’s baby in his arms and sweating like a pig because of his escalading stress level. He had turned the stroller inside out but he had found nothing that could tell him who the kid belonged to. In other words, he had no clue where his nephew was and Fiona would be home in just a couple of hours. What it all came down to was that Ian better start writing his will.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he murmured to the baby, who had started to fuss a little. “We’ll find your parents, it’s okay, please don’t cry, I have to think.” He rubbed her back and tried to calm himself down so he could think of something to do. He could go to the police, couldn’t he? They could find her parents. He wouldn’t be punished for making a mistake, right? Right?

But what if the whole process ended up taking so long that Fiona came home and found out Ian had lost her son? Her wrath would be a fate worse than prison. Ian shuddered at the mere thought.

He was just about to say fuck it and just take her to the police station – what else could he do? - when his phone went off. His first thought was that it was Fiona checking up on Derek and Ian felt nauseous trying to figure out how to break it to her gently. ‘Uh, hi, Fiona. Yeah, about Derek… I might have lost him, but the good news is you now have a girl if you want one! She’s really cute, she’s got really bright blue eyes, you’ll love her.’

Fucking hell.

He picked up his phone and it wasn’t Fiona. _Unknown_ blinked up at him and he accepted the call. “Ian Ga—“

“Where the _fuck’s_ my kid, asshole?!”

Ian had to hold the phone away from his ear so he wouldn’t go deaf, but relief washed over him like a cooling rush of water. “You must be –“

“My. Kid,” the man said, slowly, his voice so threatening that Ian shuddered a little.

“If you’ll just let me speak,” he started and the guy on the other end snorted impatiently. “I’ve got her, she’s fine. We must have taken each other’s stroller by mistake.”

“I did no such thing,” the voice growled. “I saw only one stroller, you’re the motherfucker that couldn’t be bothered to check before running off with my fucking kid!”

Ian held the phone away from his ear again and the baby reached for it, babbling loudly and flailing her chubby arms. Ian had only seen one stroller as well, but he would be the first to admit that maybe he hadn’t paid enough attention and noticed there were two.

“Is that her?” her dad asked and Ian put the phone on speaker.

“Yeah. Say hi to Daddy?”

The girl screeched with glee, babbling wildly.

“Jesus, Charlie,” her dad said, his voice a lot softer now. Ian guessed he could forgive him for yelling at him. “You okay? I’m gonna come get you, okay, don’t be scared. Where are you?”

The last question was obviously aimed at Ian, judging the change in pitch. He turned the speaker off and put it back against his ear. He carefully put Charlie, as her name proved to be, in Derek’s playpen. She was a bit younger than Derek, it didn’t seem like she had begun to walk yet, but she easily hoisted herself upright using the bars as support, still babbling loudly to her dad.

Charlie’s father’s name was Mickey, and they agreed to meet at the park to do a baby swap.

“What’s yours called anyway?” Mickey asked once they had exchanged all the necessary information which seemed to have calmed him down significantly. “Can’t just keep callin’ him ‘random-ass kid’.”

“Derek,” Ian replied. “And he’s not mine, he’s my nephew.”

Mickey whistled. “Losing your sibling’s kid. That’s rough, man. You gonna get out alive?”

Ian chuckled. “If we meet up in half an hour as planned, then yeah. She’ll never find out. How is he?”

“He seems amused. Playing with my sister. ‘Ey, Mandy,” he called to someone in the background who Ian assumed was his sister. “You’re aware we’re giving him back in half an hour, right? Don’t get attached or some shit.”

Ian laughed when he heard a girl coo “But he’s so cute!”

They hung up not long after that, both men satisfied that they would get their kids back. Ian now had Mickey’s number saved on his phone, just in case something came up, and he went back to Charlie, picking her up.

“Let’s go find daddy,” he said, making a face at her. She seemed to understand that because she kicked out with all her limbs, screaming “dada” repeatedly.

 

* * *

 

Mickey was at the park ten minute before they had planned to meet, anxious and on edge. This guy better be trustworthy or else he would become very family with the texture of a baseball bat.

Mickey rocked Derek’s stroller as he waited, tapping his foot impatiently against the ground.

He didn’t have to wait long, only a minute later he saw a guy walking quickly towards him, pushing a stroller identical to the one Mickey had.

Mickey grabbed the handlebar and met him halfway and both of them flew over to the other stroller before even taking one look at each other.

“Thank god,” Mickey heard Ian say as he pushed the canopy back as if making completely sure it was the right baby. “I’m so sorry, Derek.”

Meanwhile Mickey was stroking his daughter’s smooth cheeks, his heart still pounding. He had never been so close to losing her before, maybe he hadn’t quite realized how much he actually loved her until now.

He hadn’t noticed Ian coming up next to him until he saw the identical stroller being pushed into his peripheral vision.

Mickey straightened up and finally managed to tear his eyes away from Charlie to look at Ian. Their eyes met and Mickey saw Ian trying to hold back a smile.

“Might as well introduce myself properly. Ian Gallagher,” Ian said, presenting Mickey with his long-fingered hand.

“You just took off with my kid and you wanna act friendly?” Mickey asked, but it didn’t end up sounding quite as rude as he had intended. He grasped Ian’s hand. “Mickey Milkovich.”

The handshake lasted for just a second too long and Mickey let go, clearing his throat awkwardly. So the babynapper was good looking. Go figure.

Ian smiled at him as if the same thought was going through his mind and the intense eye contact didn’t end until one of the babies made an impatient sound. Both their heads snapped towards the strollers.

“That was mine,” Mickey mumbled and started slowly rolling Charlie’s stroller back and forth. “She doesn’t like to be still.”

“They really are the same,” Ian said, looking at the two identical strollers side by side. He glanced over at Mickey and looked pained. “I’m so sorry. Really. Is there anything I can do to make up for it?”

“Could use with a bite to eat,” Mickey said before he could stop himself.

“Alright,” Ian said without missing a beat. “We’ll have lunch, it’s on me.”

Mickey definitely wasn’t about to pass on a free meal, so he agreed and then they were off to find a café that wouldn’t mind noisy children.

“So,” Ian said as they walked. “You alone with her or?”

“My sister and I are kind of raisin’ her.” Mickey kept his eyes on Charlie as he spoke. “Her mom split when she was like a week old. Was just as well really.”

Ian was silent for a moment before he asked, “So, you and her mom, you were..?”

“Definitely not together,” Mickey said, almost laughing at the mere thought. “It was a drunken mistake.”

After she told him she was pregnant Mickey had made a promise to himself to never pretend like he was someone he’s not ever again. It wasn’t worth it, it only made him feel like shit and sometimes it had serious consequences, like a kid. Mickey hadn’t as much as let a girl blow him since then and he hadn’t missed it even a little bit.

“Ah.”

Mickey could feel Ian’s eyes on him and he waited for him to spit whatever it was out.

“You’re good with her,” Ian continued. “It’s good of you to take care of her.”

Mickey said nothing for a while. He wasn’t used to hearing he was a good father, even though he tried. As long as he was better than his own then he would declare it a success. “I wasn’t always good,” he admitted eventually. “I was quite shitty for the first few months of her life, I’m surprised she even likes me now. I was going to put her up for adoption, but I don’t know… Couldn’t do it, I suppose. And then Mandy, my sister, offered to help me and we’re doing surprisingly okay.”

They reached a diner that they both knew had a play area for kids and they helped each other get their strollers in through the door; it was so heavy that it required quite the team work operation but they finally got through.

They picked a table right next to the play area and they put the children down next to each other on the mat. Mickey took Charlie’s bonnet off, patted down her dark hair, and she immediately crawled over to the building blocks. Derek staggered after her on unsteady legs not long after. Ian and Mickey watched them bang blocks together for several minutes before either of them dared to take their eyes off them.

“Seems they’re getting along nicely,” Ian said. “What do you want? Pick whatever.”

“I’ll have the most expensive thing on the menu,” Mickey said. Ian laughed and he couldn’t help but feel pleased.

They had a sandwich each, then a coffee, and then bought an ice cream and a pastry for each of the children. After eating, the children were impatient to get back to playing so they let them go. Mickey and Ian ended up sitting there for so long, alternating between talking and looking at the kids, that they got hungry again and had to order another sandwich.

“Hey, these last ones are on me,” Mickey insisted when the sandwiches arrived. “Just because you – holy shit!”

Ian’s eyes widened at the outburst. “What is it?”

Mickey stared towards the play area where Charlie was standing in the middle of the floor, not holding onto anything. She took a shaky step.

“Oh, my god,” Ian said just as Mickey got out of his chair and crouched down onto the floor.

“That’s it, come on,” Mickey coaxed, opening his arms to encourage her. She took a couple steps more, swayed dangerously, but found her balance again and stayed upright. “You can do it, come on, come to me. Come on, baby.”

Charlie fell into Mickey’s arms after three more steps and he caught her under the armpits and swung her up into the air. “You did it,” he told her and she squealed happily.

Mickey had forgotten he was actually in a room full of people but he was reminded when the room erupted with applause and cheers. He stopped spinning and stared. A couple of middle aged women a few tables over smiled at him as if he had done something great. “Um.” His face heated up and he quickly sat down, clutching Charlie to his chest. “Sorry, um, got a bit excited,” he told Ian, who was looking at him with a soft smile, and the applause ceased. “First steps and all that shit.”

Derek, jealous at all the attention Charlie was getting, walked over to Ian and tugged at his shirt. Ian pulled him up into his lap and started bouncing him on his knee. “Don’t apologize,” Ian said. “That was fucking magical. I, uh, I hope you don’t mind I filmed it on my phone. Thought you might want to save it, I can send it to you.”

“Yeah, I’d – I’d like that.”

They smiled at each other across the table.

“We should have playdates sometime,” Ian suggested and broke the eye contact and took a sip of water. “I think, uh, I think the kids like each other.”

“We should,” Mickey agreed.

The next time Ian and Mickey met, which was for lunch the next day, it was without the children. That proved to have been a good decision, because the way the day ended wasn’t particularly child friendly.

 

The End


End file.
